


cooler than you

by Babydoll Ria (Babydoll_Ria)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hipsters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blogging, California, F/M, Vegetarians & Vegans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 18:37:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3219293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babydoll_Ria/pseuds/Babydoll%20Ria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two words to describe Finnick Odair-hipster douchebag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cooler than you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thewildwilds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewildwilds/gifts), [ambpersand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambpersand/gifts).



> So I have been bitching to [Amber](http://ambpersand.tumblr.com) and [Laryn](http://dorsalfinnick.tumblr.com) about Hipster Finnick for a good six months or so, and how no one seems to understand how fabulous that would be.
> 
> Then enter  this amazing one who took a throwaway post of me wanting Hipster Finnick and then drew [him](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/108605451368/seevikifangirl-seevikifangirl-can-we-just) and that just made me talk about Annie. [ Which was drawn.](http://thewildwilds.tumblr.com/post/108622024443/seevikifangirl-thewildwilds)
> 
> So of course I had to do this.
> 
> For those who don't know:  
> Hipster  
> \hip-stur\n. One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term "cool"; a Hipster would instead say "deck.") The Hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream. A Hipster ideally possesses no more than 2% body fat. (The Hipster Handbook, Robert Lanham)
> 
> Basic  
> Someone who is unflinchingly upholding of the status quo and stereotypes of their gender without even realizing it. She engages in typical, unoriginal behaviors, modes of dress, speech, and likes. She is tragically/laughably unaware of her utter lack of specialness and intrigue. She believers herself to be unique, fly, amazing, and a complete catch, when really she is boring, painfully normal, and par. She believes her experiences to be crazy, wild, and different or somehow more special than everything that everybody else is doing, when really, almost everyone is doing or has done the exact same thing. She is typical and a dime a dozen. There are many subtypes of basicness, such as the basic ratchet, the basic sorority bitch, the basic groupie bitch, the basic I'm-so-Carrie-from-Sex-and-the-City bitch, etc, but ultimately, they all share the common thread of being expendable and unnoteworthy and, in some cases, having absolutely no redeeming qualities. (Urban Dictionary)

Annie Cresta has one tattoo on the underside of her left breast and it reads in her grandmother’s handwriting _Love Is More Powerful_ and then the date when breast cancer took her eighty-two year old grandmother. 

She’s not a girl who likes tattoos or facial piercings. She has one hole in each ear and a fresh water pearl stud in each ear. She works part time in an upscale boutique off the strip, so she can afford that trip to Paris in the summer as her trust fund will not cover expenses such as that.

At twenty-three Annie has graduated from MIT and a spent a year abroad with her friend Cashmere, who is now going to NYU for the first part of her PhD in history and has recently broken up with her two year relationship with Gloss because Gloss is in San Francisco now working in web design for a start-up that will hopefully make millions.

It wasn’t a bad break up, no she and Gloss are friends. It was a mutual uncoupling that happens when your lives begin to run on different tracks. Annie’s a girl who falls in love slowly, fully and completely. She understands and embraces heartache because she’d rather have loved and lost than never felt anything like that before.

She’s happy with her life, if only not for the one man in her English class.

* * *

 

Finnick Odair wants to be a super hero; he can’t of course, not that that stops him from having the Batman symbol tattooed on his ribs. But he can be the next best thing.

He got his bachelor’s in political science and he works full time at a non-profit youth center, helping less fortunate kids in L.A’s inner city; it’s his way of giving back to the people who helped save him when he was a kid.  His work day starts at ten and goes until five-thirty, which gives him ample time to go get his Masters in social work with morning and evening classes, which means he will eventually becoming the manager of the place and get it running right.

He runs the most popular blog on Panem, an underground activist forum site. He runs District Four, the California state blog full of exposing crooked politicians, corporations that aren’t good, and protests and news that mainstream media won’t talk about.

He also has a twitter, it’s pretty popular but it’s sarcasm that become popular Tumblr posts and its lighter more observational filled.

He’s found a group of people, who understand that conventional relationships aren’t his boat, and free love is more his speed and he’s even managed to get Johanna Mason, the woman who runs District Seven, the Iowa based blog on Panem into a consensual cyber-sex affair.

In fact at twenty-four Finnick Odair might be exactly where he wanted to be (minus the super hero powers) if only it weren’t for that girl in his English course.

He’s not happy he has to take an English course to graduate with his Masters, but all in all it’s bearable if it weren’t for Annie Cresta.

Annie Cresta is a simple girl. She’s small and thin, probably the result of an eating disorder and she wears dresses that are fancy, floral and designer. She never comes late to class, but she doesn’t come early, she shows up exactly on time with a large Starbucks in her French manicured hand and clicks in sky high stilettos into the center row of the class and sits with her sticker-free MacBook pro. In short, Annie Cresta is a basic white girl. Well, he’s almost certain she’s white. To rephrase, Annie Cresta is basic and that is why he is so popular on twitter.

He has a series of tweets he composes in the margins of his recycled paper notebook that he writes and queues up to play over the week when he has to deal with her, his twitter is simply the Basic Girl Next Door, and it has over three million followers.

It is hilarious how many people hate girls like Annie and with good reason to-she’s never had to work a day in her life. Cresta Ltd. Is a renown shipping manufacturing company in northern California and while he’s not sure how distantly connected she is, there is no way any fourth year can afford to dress like that and live in L.A.

* * *

 

If she had to describe Finn Odair in one word, she would have to use two to fully capture every inch of Finnick Odair and those two words would be _hipster douchebag_. He’s famous in their university, tall, tan and good looking in the movie star way even movie stars can’t achieve without makeup crews, he’s like a miniature celebrity at UCLA.  He’s always with a different girl whose hair is dyed and they have multiple piercings, she’s heard rumours that there’s a twitter account called Finn Odair Abs but she’s not sure if it exists.  And as such, she knows more about him than she really should for someone who is studying social work while she is studying physics. He eats vegan, and whenever someone in his Master’s program says something wrong, he’s always there to point it out.

Also he thinks that he has to take an English course to fulfill the requirements to graduate a complete and utter waste of time, because he needs to go and help people and he’s mastered the English language before he was five. He told the professor that the first day of Thirteenth Century Romantic Era Poetry, the only fourth year seminar English course she could find to fit her schedule.

* * *

 

Doctor Haymitch Abernathy looks like a drunk.  It’s an unfair observation but it doesn’t make it less true. His grey eyes look a bit blood shot, and every time he comes into the seminar room at eight in the morning on Wednesdays (a truly horrendous hour) he always stumbles before he gets his coffee  in his mouth.

He was one of Grandma Mags’ old friends, he took a part time job at the plant when he was a teenager along with Uncle Brutus and Uncle Beetee and Aunt Lyme but Haymitch didn’t keep in touch, didn’t come for Christmas or Thanksgiving dinners the way the others did, and he didn’t even come to the funeral or the hospital when Grandma died two years ago.

She doesn’t blame him-a lot. Uncle Brutus told her that Grandma collected orphans; kids who didn’t have a family for whatever reason and helped them get on their feet and not fall down through the cracks. Haymitch’s family had died in a house fire while he was out with friends when he was sixteen. He met Grandma and the others when he was eighteen and somehow ended up in Northern California from South Dakota.

He was a drifter Aunt Lyme said, he never really felt like he could stay around them-perhaps it hurt too much.

Either way, seeing the name Haymitch Abernathy next to assistant professor was one huge shock and one even more when he looked her straight in the eye and said he was sorry.

She still hasn’t fully forgiven him, but a sorry works well.

* * *

 

The course is set up fairly simply, thirty percent paper, thirty percent group presentation and thirty percent final. The remaining ten percent will be applied wherever Doctor Abernathy, an apparent eccentric genius sees fit.

Doctor Abernathy seems to like discussion, loud yelling is encouraged as he sits back at the table in the front and adds thought provoking questions as people get riled up. It’s an interesting class, one that he rather enjoys now-if it weren’t for Annie Cresta.

She doesn’t say anything, or when she does, she tries to relate poets to actors and singers and whatever who are alive now a days.

It’s a spectacular failure.

It’s the third week in and now the groups for the project will be assigned. He’s almost excited.

‘You can’t change ‘em,’ Doctor Abernathy drawls from the front. ‘You’re all adults so act like one. If you don’t like whom you’re with deal with it. Once you and your partner get it all figured out, pick a poet and come and sign up for a date.’

‘Where are the partners?’ Annie Cresta asks, speaking up for the first time in class over top her white disposable Starbucks cup.

‘On the course website.’

She nods, and most of the class heads are down as the wait for the website to load. He doesn’t own a laptop or a netbook so he has to take his Samsung out of his pocket and on the large screen type in the website address.

‘Shit,’ heads turn as the curse escapes trying to figure out who is so upset with their partner.

‘Everything okay Anna-bell?’ Doctor Abernathy from the front seat smirks. Another thing to dislike about Annie Cresta she’s taking her uncle’s course (he overheard her talking about her grandmother’s funeral with the professor), and that is on no certain levels nepotism.

Annie Cresta looks like someone just told her to eat a bug, but she grimaces in a way that makes the professor laugh, ‘Peachy keen sir.’

He huffs, she’s a liar as well, and when he looks back at his phone he wants to throw it into the wall.

Right at the top is Annie Cresta and Finnick Odair.

There is general movement signaling both the end of class and that people are finding their partners to discuss which poet, he doesn’t move and usually he’s the first one out the door to get to work on time. This is the worst thing possible, he’s got a partner who won’t do her work, who’s relying on her uncle to pass the class and who drinks Starbucks.

Annie comes to him, ‘We’re partners.’

‘Yay.’ He says looking up at her.  His nose wrinkles and his glasses move up a bit. She’s wearing too much make up.

‘You sound so thrilled,’ Annie says dryly. ‘Look can we just choose a poet and then figure everything out.‘

‘I’ve got to go to work,’ he says standing up. Even in her heels, he towers over her and he’s really worried that her eating disorder when she was a teenager completely prevented her from reaching five foot one. ‘We can talk later.’

‘But all of the good poets will be gone!’

He wants to laugh; how would this girl know a good poet from a hack angst driven sixteen year old- sorry Tumblr poet, if one hit her upside the head?

‘I need to go.’

‘Fine,’ she says frustrated. ‘Fine, just text me someone on your way to work and I’ll sign us up.’

‘I don’t have your number,’ he tells her and she sighs and pulls out the latest model of the iPhone in white and reads off her number. He dutifully adds it into his Samsung, takes his notebook, pen and his army jacket from the surplus store down on Piko Boulevard and leaves.

‘Bye,’ he can hear her call out after him.

* * *

 

She wants to scream.

Most of the class has already filed out of the room leaving her alone with a smirking almost Uncle and she whirls around to glare at him.

‘What the hell?’

‘Not so peachy keen are you Anne-bell?’

‘Finn Odair?’ she rages, ‘Finn Odair? Seriously it could have been anyone else but that guy!’

‘What’s so bad about him? He’s smart, a hard worker, driven, good looking…’Haymitch trails off wiggling his eyebrows. She rolls her eyes.

‘I hate him!’

‘Oh Anne-bell,’ Haymitch says mockingly, ‘Haven’t you heard that hate is just love in disguise?’

‘It’s not!’

‘Than is it just unresolved sexual tension?’

‘God no! Just because everyone else wants to sleep with him doesn’t mean I do!’

‘Then what is it?’

‘Stop me if I already said this, but I hate him.’

‘Have you ever spoken to him?’

‘N-no,’ she stutters quietly. Haymitch smiles and it’s almost kind. It still doesn’t make anything better.

‘Then why do you hate him?’

She doesn’t have a good reason, well his utter disrespect to a professor on the first day of class is a good one; but she will fully admit since then he’s committed to the class full stop, coming prepared and ready to work. In fact, excusing his rudeness just then which being late for work can be excused there isn’t any reason on the planet why she should hate him.

‘Because he hates me,’ she says finally. And that’s true too-sort of. He’s never said it, but she’s very sure he’s spent a lot of time making fun of her behind her back to…someone. She’s not sure who because he only talks to disprove people and lord over them his intelligence of being in grad school.

‘How do you know that?’ Haymitch asks logically. She flushes. She doesn’t know it.

‘Why did you do it?’ she asks finally.

Haymitch seems to be taking pity on her, ‘I didn’t. It was just random.’

It doesn’t make her feel better.

* * *

 

The way Panem works is that all of the bloggers (fifty in all) are responsible for their home state. In an effort of the marketing of this website, each state is called a District and is numbered. Everyone is anonymous but in private chats among friends real names are used sporadically.

His two best friends (and even that is a stretch)  on the site are D12, a twenty something blue collar carpenter from South Dakota named Gale, and D7, Johanna who does something. He’s not quite sure what. Johanna and him are kindred spirits of a sort; they both were put through the system at an older age than normal. He was lucky to stay in Brawley while she was moved all around Iowa.

As luck has it, when he logs on after work both of them are online, which means he has someone to talk about.

> **D4:** fml
> 
> **D12:** what
> 
> **D7:** this is gonna be good
> 
> **D4:** so remember the twitter?
> 
> **D12:** no
> 
> **D7:** ya
> 
> **D4:** the basic girl twitter i run
> 
> **D12:** that i said was a bad idea?
> 
> **D7:** it’s a great fucking idea shut up
> 
> **D4:** the girl its based on is in my class right
> 
> **D12:** and she found it and youre getting sued
> 
> **D4:** no
> 
> **D4:** shes my partner for a big project
> 
> **D7:** thats fucking jokes
> 
> **D7:** ur going 2 get such good material
> 
> **D4:** forget that
> 
> **D4:** i have to work with her
> 
> **D12:** so?
> 
> **D4:** shes so name brand dropping
> 
> **D4:** doesnt have a thought in her head
> 
> **D7:** shes a basic bitch
> 
> **D7:** theyre not real people
> 
> **D12:** you can have fake people
> 
> **D7:** its called hollywood babe

* * *

 

 _‘So tell me about this guy,’_ Cashmere says through the computer screen. _‘Finnick.’_

Annie glances at her best friend as she putters around the kitchen making her dinner while blonde Cashmere lounges in bed.

‘What do you want to know?’

_‘Is he hot?’_

‘Yeah, but he-‘

_‘Oh you lucked out Annie. You have a good looking boy to stare at all day.’_

‘But he’s really full of himself, and he argues with the professor and just…he wants all the attention on him in class.’

_‘So? Does he know his stuff?’_

‘I think so but it’s not like I really know anything about thirteenth century poets.’

Cashmere sighs, _‘Well what a pickle you have. Your partner is very good looking guy, who’s kind of a douchebag. Is he a bro?’_

She snorts into her salad. ‘Oh god no, he’s the anti-bro. A hipster.’

* * *

 

> **@Basicgirlnextdoor**
> 
> _How many ray bans can you own?_

It’s not his best tweet, but it’s out there and he’s getting the notifications as he writes up his latest post for _District Four_ about dress codes, when he realizes it’s been almost a day and he still hasn’t texted Annie Cresta.

He has to leave his desk top to go find his messenger bag on the bed in his studio apartment on Lucas. It takes him awhile because she’s not saved under _Annie Cresta_ , but rather _Basic Bitch._

He has to go back to his computer and scan the list of poets available before he texts her _Thomas Malory if that is okay with you._

The reply is instantaneous, _kk_.

He scoffs. She even texts stupidly.

* * *

 

She comes early to class, traffic is always horrible in LA in the morning and the twenty minute drive to Campus, in rush hour becomes almost an hour drive. She woke up at five to get to class early to talk to Finnick, skipping yoga. She’s got her gym bag in the trunk so she’ll do cardio today instead.

He never answered her text, which means they couldn’t plan anything. She’s come to two conclusions, he’s either a technophobe as seen with his moleskin organic notebook or he really doesn’t like her. Either one can be very true.

She didn’t manage to get to Starbucks; instead she stopped by the student run coffee shop and gets a really bad instant coffee and trucks to the seminar room. Haymitch isn’t there yet, but in the back seat with a beanie on his head and the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up showing his random Tetris tattoos is Finn Odair.

‘Hi,’ she says shortly. She’s a bit surprised he’s here at seven twenty, when the class doesn’t start for another forty minutes but really it makes sense he’d be there super early.

He looks at her over his thick black framed glasses, there’s a look of surprise and then he schools his features into a look of dismissal.

‘Hey,’ he answers. His accent is distinctly southern California. He draws out his syllables, and she wouldn’t doubt he grew up near the coast or the border.

She surprised them both when instead of taking her usual seat in the center row ( far enough back that she’s not in the direct eyesight of the professor, but close enough to the front that she’s not going to get distracted) she moves to the back and sits in the empty seat to his left. She can seem his raise a thick eyebrow but he doesn’t say anything as she sets up her computer, and leaves the coffee by her elbow.

‘SEAS?’ he says nodding towards the cup.

‘I was running late,’ she tells him distracted by _Le Samouraï_ still left on her screen from last night.

‘What’s that?’

 _‘Le Samouraï_ ,’ she tells him quickly exciting the screen to the background picture of a collection of Polaroids of Cashmere, Enobaria and herself at a night out in Paris last year.

‘Do you have a foreign film class or something?’ Finnick asks. She resists rolling her eyes.

‘No it’s my favourite movie. I was watching it last night with my best friends.’ It was hard to stream the movie and the skype call all at the same time, but they had to with Cashmere in New York and Enobaria still in Paris, doing fashion design.

Most of her friends are older, she doesn’t remember how she met Cashmere or her twin brother Gloss, both of them five years older than her, but they’ve been some of her dearest friends in the world. Enobaria was Cashmere’s roommate in college and after some ribbing over how small Annie was, she accepted her whole heartedly.

‘Really.’ It doesn’t sound like a question, but she ignores the tone to focus on their project.

‘When can you meet to go over this project? We’re not until the tenth week but I’d like to get most of it done now. I’ll be really busy in the end of the term.’

‘I’m usually only free on Sundays,’ Finnick tells her. ‘I work all week and Saturdays I’m usually busy with other stuff.’

Annie again resists the urge to roll her eyes, ‘Okay then… do you have Facebook? We can do this on Facebook.’

‘I don’t have Facebook.’ Of course he wouldn’t.

‘Do you have any social media at all?’ she sighs.

‘No.’

‘Okay so this Sunday then,’ Annie says. ‘I don’t really want to go to campus on a Sunday. Your place or mine?’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Woodgreen.’

Finnick’s eyes widen and he lets out a low whistle, ‘You live there?’

She shifts uncomfortably in the seat. It’s a nice neighbourhood, only five miles or so from Santa Monica’s pier.

‘Where do you live?’ she asks.

‘Lucas.’ That’s about a ten minute drive from campus. If it’s like that, she might as well go to campus on Sunday.

‘Come to my place,’ she says.

Finnick clicks his pen and she supposes that’s an okay.

* * *

 

> **D12:** so my gf came home today and said
> 
> **D12:** one of her coworkers showed her something really funny
> 
> **D12:** and it was your twitter.
> 
> **D12:** but she didnt find it funny
> 
> **D12:** she wants to know whats wrong with liking starbucks
> 
> **D12:** and all the other stuff
> 
> **D12:** like i get it’s a joke ha ha funny
> 
> **D12:** but youre really mean dude.
> 
> **D12:** theyre people not protests or whatever.

* * *

 

Annie Cresta is a rich basic girl, he assumed that but the apartment building he gets off the bus at just proves it.

There’s a doorman and everything, and he has to find the name Cresta on the list of residents before he can get buzzed in.

When he knocks on the door of apartment 470, he’s met by Annie who answers the door in bare feet and jean cut offs and a vintage t-shirt of Batman.

‘Hey,’ she greets him casually stepping aside to let him in. ‘How was traffic?’

‘I don’t drive,’ he tells her taking a good long look of how Annie Cresta lives.

It’s a large open space, with a balcony door that’s open, overlooking the street. There are wooden floors and a rug on the floor in front of the fire place. Two large leather arm chairs are situated around a wooden coffee table that has a few textbooks all of them thick and hardcover and candles on it.  There is a bookshelf against one wall, full of used thumb through classics, as well as more textbooks and a large extensive collection of DVDs with foreign titles and a television sits on an angle at the perfect position to watch from the small black sofa opposite the fire place.

There’s also a bright pink yoga mat in the corner.

‘You take public transit in L.A?’ Annie asks astonished, closing the door. ‘Are you insane?”

‘No, it’s just not practical to have a car.’

‘It’s not practical to take public transit,’ he can hear her mutter under her breathe. ‘Can I get you anything to drink?’

‘Water, thanks.’

She disappears into the kitchen and he sets up his notebook and textbooks he took out from the library on the coffee table.

When Annie returns, she brings two large clear glasses of water with what looks like strawberries frozen in ice cubes and a bag of chips and dip.

‘Do you know what brand these chips are?’ he asks her, as she moves her MacBook to the table.

Annie looks up startled, ‘Um, no? Are you allergic?’

‘Vegan.’  She still looks a bit confused. ‘The oil they fry the chips in could contain animal by-products.’

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Um…okay.’

She gets up and takes the chips and dip back into her kitchen and returns with a few bananas, ‘Better?’

‘Yeah it’s fine,’ he says feeling a bit guilty. He didn’t mean to make her give up her snack. ‘You have a lot of foreign films.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ she glances at her bookcase and smiles a bit. There’s no makeup on her face now, at least none he can detect and he’s amazed at how pale she is living in L.A, ‘I didn’t get to travel a lot as a kid, so this was the best I could do.’

‘Why not?’

Annie is silent for a long moment and he wonders if perhaps he’s pushed too far. He’s about to apologise when she cuts him off.

‘My grandmother was sick a lot when I was growing up, so it was safer to just stay in Crescent City,’ she tells him mildly. ‘She bought me a lot of movies like that to make it up to me.’

Crescent City, she’s from Northern California, not out of state like he originally assumed. ‘That’s cool.’

She nods, ‘We should figure this out. He’s a hard marker.’

‘You’ve had him before?’

Annie shakes her head, ‘No it’s just what _Rate My Prof_ says.’

‘Oh, I thought he taught all of first year English.’

‘Maybe,’ she shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Aren’t you in English?’

‘No,’ Annie looks up from her computer. ‘I’m in physics.’

‘Then why are you doing that?’

‘Same reason as you,’ she says simply. ‘I was thinking we should-‘

‘You’re doing your masters?’ Finnick stares. She nods.

Annie Cresta is not someone he ever thought would firstly be taking anything involving math; she doesn’t look like a person who can make a decent argument and now she’s doing her masters in physics. That means she’s older than she looks, which admittedly isn’t hard, but it’s still hard to believe.

‘Yeah, in physics.’ She sounds bored, as if she’s done with this conversation. ‘So like I was saying we should probably focus on his life, and then do a critical analysis of like two of his poems, and then his legacy. That should take up like two hours right?’

He nods, still trying to get through this idea.

* * *

 

Six hours later, and she’s so filled up with Thomas Malory that she is going to scream. She’s also starving but she doesn’t know what she can feed Finnick because everything she has has meat, unless she makes him rice.

‘I need a break,’ she tells Finnick, who doesn’t like he’s broken a sweat. ‘I’m hungry and I need to stop reading because I am going to scream.’

‘Your neighbours will love that,’ he says wryly, checking his watch. ‘Probably think you’re having animalistic sex at five in the afternoon.’

She snorts; she wasn’t expecting that but from some of the off colour comments Finnick has been making aloud while doing the research has made it quite clear he has a dirty and dry sense of humour. She doesn’t think he realizes he’s making those comments either.

‘I don’t know about the walls in Lucas, but here they’re built so we don’t hear our neighbors sex lives,’ she quips. ‘Come on, let’s go for a walk. We need fresh air.’

‘I should probably go anyway,’ Finnick says standing and stretching. ‘The buses stop running earlier on Sundays.’

‘I’ll drive you home,’ she offers. ‘I’m hungry so let’s go to the grocery store, buy food and then cook it.’

‘Why?’ he asks.

She rolls her eyes-if he gets to make sarcastic comments about animalistic sex than she’s allowed to roll her eyes at him.  ‘Because eating alone is never fun. So come on vegan boy let’s go.’

He rolls his eyes back at her, but he follows her slipping on his loafers.

* * *

 

The thing about cyber-sex is that it’s really just masturbating on a web cam, and it’s not the same as actual sex, especially when Jo’s Skype keeps on dropping and that makes it hard to keep his dick up when she freezes and disconnects.

Eventually he just tells her to forget it, and manages to get himself off thinking about green eyes and dark wavy hair and a large leather arm chair and when he cums grasping in his hand, he has to sit back and think critically because he just came to the idea of Annie Cresta.

Instead of Johanna.

And for once he’s very glad about the whole cyber-sex thing because that means Jo is several thousands of miles away on the other end of the country where she cannot bring an ax to his neck for fantasying about someone other than her while she’s fucking you.

It’s not that Annie Cresta isn’t pretty-she is; he can appreciate beauty without wanting to touch it. He’s small and slender in something that can look borderline unhealthy and makes him rather curious about her eating habits. She’s got long dark hair that falls in soft waves, like she’s been in the ocean and her hair dried that way before meeting you, to her mid chest.  She has a hart shaped face, small again and green eyes that are big. It’s a weird proportion and she looks more waif or nymph that real girl.

Something her floral dresses and heels just prove.

But back to facts, he just came to the idea of Annie Cresta and that is so wrong, he can’t even begin to understand why or how.

* * *

 

The next Wednesday, he’s pushed Sunday out of mind  ( and what happened later between him and his hand )and has taken out a few different books on romantic era poetry, as well as sent an email to Haymitch to make sure they aren’t missing any key books, when she comes in in a pink dress, and catches his eye.

She smiles at him, evidently thinking that in the ten or so hours they spent on Sunday made them friends. It doesn’t, of course, not even close. But it does show him that Annie is maybe not as basic as he expected.

She’s still carrying a Starbucks cup, but it’s more of something necessary to her being upright, if the amount of caffeine she ingested on Sunday is any indication.

‘Hey,’ she says sliding into the seat beside him. ‘How was work?’

‘Good,’ he says. It wasn’t actually good. They had a youth come to the center with cigar burns up and down his arm from his mother, and they had to call social services and it was a whole big headache. ‘Busy. How about you?’

She had told him over dinner that she worked at a boutique Tuesdays and Thursdays evenings to pay for her trip back to Paris. He realized unfortunately, once you start Annie talking, you can never quite manage to shut her up. It doesn’t connect with the way she is in class, but he’s seen her notes and it’s almost a perfect transcription of what people have said, so he figures she’s a listener in class and a talker everywhere else.

‘Boring. We had to do stock and that never stops,’ she tells him.

They don’t get to talk much, as lecture starts and he gets sidetracked with an idiot in a Nirvana shirt who claims Chaucer is the best poet out there.  He can see from the side of his eyes, that Annie is rolling her eyes at him. She does that constantly when he says something she doesn’t agree with, he’s noticed.

‘It’s a matter of opinion,’ she says under her breathe once Haymitch has called for a ten minute break. ‘He can believe-Peeta can believe Chaucer is a good poet, you can’t tell him he’s wrong.’

‘But he is,’ Finnick argues, impressed that she knows the blonde boy’s name. ‘He is. You can’t make such elitist statement.’

Annie snorts; it’s a loud unlady like sound that doesn’t look right coming from her. ‘It’s not elitist statement. Oh my god. Okay fine, who’s the best super hero?’

‘Batman,’ he says without pausing.

‘Wrong,’ Annie sings, getting up with her Starbucks cup. He follows her out of the classroom as she tosses the cup away and makes towards the vending machine.

‘How can that possibly be wrong?’

‘Well it’s an elitist statement,’ Annie says pushing coins into the slot. ‘You can’t have a best super hero.’

‘Yes you can!’

‘Nope, anyway Batman’s a dick.’

‘What?!’ he sputters. ‘How the hell can Batman be a dick-‘

‘He never wants to team up,’ Annie tells him picking up the pretzels and offering him one. He takes the bag and scans the ingredients before opening it. ‘He’s not Atlas, he can’t save the world by himself. He needs to just join the Justice League and stopping being a dick.’

‘Do you even read the comics?’ Finnick demands, ‘I’m such a big Batman fan, I’ve got him tattooed on my chest and-‘

‘Yeah you’re a fan. So you’re biased,’ Annie points out. ‘That’s my point. Peeta likes Chaucer so he’s biased. Calm down Finnick. It’s just a poem.’

* * *

 

They begin meeting every Sunday for this project, the first two are just hours of research that never ever seems to end.

People write so much about poets’ dead centuries ago, that she wants to scream. There is a reason why she doesn’t study literature.

But they’ve fallen into a routine, sort of. 

He comes every Sunday around eleven, and they do research accumulating loads of back ground things that will be important and she emails him the notes so he has a copy for his desktop.

She asked him why he doesn’t have a laptop and it takes him a while with something like ghosts in his before he said he just doesn’t like technology.

It’s a fair enough reason. But it just seems a bit off. Something about Finnick feels off. Maybe it’s the free love hippy sex thing he’s got going on; or the vegan thing. But something just feels weird about him.

It’s just that while Finnick may no longer fit under hipster douchebag in her mind, and more of a weird guy who laughed when she burnt the kale chips she made for them one time, and who helped her pick out the right texture of fake meat to put in the stir fry she also burnt. She’s never going to like the taste, and after Finnick almost gagged down her cooking he showed her how to eat if not completely vegan, then at least somewhat peskitarian.

After her quinoa burger crumbled, she put her foot down on having something like meat to hold everything together, and he eventually agreed that he could eat fish maybe sometimes, so long as he wasn’t seen in public doing that.

That was a completely odd statement that doesn’t make sense because Finnick is a grad student he’s not a celebrity, but she doesn’t push because they (or rather Finnick with her reading the instructions) made a great grilled salmon over top a kelp and tomato salad which she really wanted to Instagram, but she knew Finnick would roll his eyes and never let it go.

It’s a weird friendship, but it’s okay.  Finnick is weird.

* * *

 

‘Why are you vegan?’ Annie asks, and he looks up from a print off of a poem stanza he’s analysing, to see Annie cross legged in yoga pants and a purple tank top sitting cross-legged on the other end of the cough, her hair all messy in a top knot.

‘Huh?’

‘Why are you a vegan?’ she repeats. He’s a bit confused, she’s never asked before just brought him fruit and soy and has been rather curious about eating meat around him.

He’s half prepared to go tell it’s none of her business, and ask her why she eats meat. Doesn’t she care about animals?

But he stops; he’s had people ask that over the six or so years he’s been a vegan, but most people only want to know why like he’s a fad follower.

‘I just don’t like the idea something I eat came from something that died,’ he says gruffly. ‘I don’t like the idea that I get to live by killing.’

It’s not the whole truth; that once he was eighteen and out of the system he made a vow he would never do anything to harm someone anyone or anything ever again, and logically it means that he won’t eat meat.

It was too hard to try to do in the system-he was already sixteen, a strain on the foster care circuit of Brawley, California so he waited until he was out.

‘That’s-I wish I could do that,’ she says smiling at him simply.

She does that a lot, smile in a shy unassuming manner. He’s seen the photos held up by coloured and sarcastic magnets on the door of the fridge, where she smiles full of teeth and something like sin with her friends.  It’s a different smile for him.

‘Why can’t you?’

‘I’m iron deficient,’ she tells him. ‘I need meat to survive.’

He nods; he can’t pass judgement on that. You can’t blame someone for doing what they need to survive.

* * *

 

‘Hey,’ she says, she’s early to class again, but only by about twenty minutes allowing time to chat. ‘Why do you have Tetris on your arms?’

He startles and then looks down at his forearms. There are several Tetris blocks of relative shapes all around his arms. They’ve never talked about their tattoos before-she’s never told him about the one on her breast, but she figures that the ones that are meant to be hidden unless you really love someone are okay to not talk about it. But those on his forearms are large and meant to be seen.

‘It’s a reminder to myself I guess.’

‘Of what?’

Finnick pauses, and gathers his thoughts. ‘That life gives you a lot of things that don’t look like they’ll fit and make sense, and if you…if you keep a level head and just stay calm everything will make sense eventually.’

‘Oh,’ Annie says. It’s a lot more in depth that she thought it was going to be, she figured he might have gotten a really high score once, or maybe his father and he played it when they were children. ‘That’s really cool.’

‘Thanks,’ Finnick smiles and she understands how he can have about twenty girls he sleeps with. She’s heard the rumours and seen how his phone buzzes constantly. He’s breathtaking and funny and passionate.

She could almost fall in love with him

* * *

 

He’s on the way home from work, about to hop on the bus when he sees the newest poster tacked onto the already over flowing bulletin board. There’s a film screening of select Luis Buñuel films next weekend at the community center. He takes a quick picture of the poster and when he is on the bus, he texts Annie still named _Basic Bitch_ in his phone the details.

She replies instantly with a lot of smiling faces.

* * *

 

It’s not a date. It isn’t but it sure feels like one, because he hasn’t seen Annie outside of class or her apartment but it’s not a date.

He’s loitering outside of the front entrance when he hears his name being called, and he turns. Annie is running down the sidewalk in a pale green dress that matches her eyes and a large brown leather bag that makes his eyebrow turn up.

When he became a vegan at eighteen, once he got out of the system he made several promises to himself. One he’d never eat meat again, something he broke when he ate fish a few times after Annie pleaded for something after that disastrous vegan restaurant Jo had told him about. Two he’d never wear leather, which he’s held up. He tried for a time when he was eighteen never to interact with people who wore leather but realized it was way too hard to go up and find people who wore vegan leather.

‘Hey!’ Annie says breathlessly when she reaches him standing on tip toes to try to wrap her arms around his neck. She’s barely five foot, so he has to bend down and hug her back. She smells like lilac and he doesn’t know what to do with that. She’s Annie Cresta; she’s not one of those girls who are into free love and strings no longer attached. ‘Thanks for inviting me!’

He shrugs, ‘It’s no big deal. You’re the only person I know who’d like to see this sort of thing.’

‘You obviously don’t know a lot of interesting people,’ she teases as they get in line, she waves away his money insisting to pay for herself.

‘I know a lot of interesting people,’ he retorts. ‘I mean Octavia has a split tongue which means she can do some very interesting-‘

‘Oh my god, I so do not want to hear about your sex life,’ Annie laughs. He waits for her to join the concession (he’s long learned that Annie almost always needs to be nibbling on something) but she shakes her head and motions to her bag.

Once they are settled in the back row of the theatre (he insists on the back row on everything that way if someone tries to talk he can toss candy at them), Annie turns to him grinning like she’s got a big surprise.

‘Ta Da!’ she says proudly, opening her giant bag. There are small plastic bags filled with Smarties, and Swedish Fish and Sour Patch Kids, as well as popcorn. ‘It is olive oil and sea salt flavoured, and all vegan so you can eat whatever!’

He laughs, ‘You’re amazing Annie Cresta.’

‘Don’t you forget it,’ she tells him smugly. ‘It’s no fun if you can’t eat anything while you watch movies.’

He can’t really protest.

* * *

 

It’s two movies in, and Annie’s head is on his shoulder and she’s a bit sleepy, he is too.

‘You’re not fading on me are you Cresta?’ he teases, ‘There’s three more movies.’

‘Never,’ she whispers, looking up through her eyelashes.

He doesn’t think but he leans in and he presses his lips to hers. When he pulls back, his forehead is resting against her forehead and he looks at her imploringly, ‘That’s okay right?’

‘Yeah,’ she tells him, letting go of the Sour Patch kids and moving her hand around his neck, drawing him in to kiss him again. ‘It’s fine.’

* * *

 

They make out like high schoolers in the back of the movie theatre, the Spanish surrealist films long forgotten as he learns what it is like to taste Annie Cresta, and what she feels like molded against his body.

He walks her to her car, waving off her offers to drive him home it’s only a five minute walk.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow?’ Annie asks, as he presses her against the door of her sedan, her hands reaching and tangling into his copper curls.  He’s busy worrying her neck, leaving a pale purple mark on her lily skin.

‘Mhm,’ he murmurs moving back to her lips, kissing her firmly before he has to peel himself off of her. ‘Text me when you get home okay?’

‘Okay,’ she echoes, unlocking the door and sliding in. Before she closes it, he leans in and kisses her one last time, tasting her cinnamon flavoured lip gloss before he steps back.

His hands are in his pocket as he watches her drive way.

* * *

 

When he come home and logs on he has about two hundred messages from Johanna; he totally forget they scheduled a cyber-sex date for that night a while ago.

> **D4:** sorry
> 
> **D7** : u sure as fuck better b
> 
> **D7:** i had to get off 2 d1
> 
> **D7:** & he doesnt have the same way with words u have
> 
> **D4:** aw you missed me
> 
> **D7:** fuck u
> 
> **D7:** where were u nway?

Finnick winced, he knows she can see him type and delete and then re-type it all. He can lie, it’s not like she would actually be able to know. But he doesn’t like lying, so he types out the message, hits enter and deals with the fallout.

> **D4:** at a movie marathon
> 
> **D7:** with who
> 
> **D4:** annie
> 
> **D7:** who the fuck is annie
> 
> **D4:** my partner on my poet project
> 
> **D7:** the basic bitch????
> 
> **D7:** ur fucking the basic bitch
> 
> **D7:** what the fuck?
> 
> **D4:** im not fucking her
> 
> **D7:** then why the fuck r u going to movie marathons with her?
> 
> **D7:** thats what bf do fucktard

Why did he go to the movie marathon with her? She wouldn’t have known about it if he hadn’t of told her, so she wouldn’t have missed it. He just saw the poster and thought that she would have enjoyed it and he was interested in her opinions on the movies. Cinna isn’t really into foreign films and if he went to see it with any of the girls they could get the wrong idea.

> **D4:** were friends
> 
> **D4:** sort of
> 
> **D4:** look im sorry i forgot
> 
> **D7:** whatever
> 
> **D7:** cant believe u blew me off 4 a basic bitch tho

* * *

 

She’s practically skipping around her apartment the next morning; there’s electricity under her skin as she makes an egg white omelet for breakfast.

She made out with Finnick Odair. With the hipster douchebag at the beginning of the school year, to her weird friend, to this guy who invites her to foreign film festivals.

She doesn’t do this often, making out with boys she isn’t one hundred percent certain she really, really likes. Gloss wasn’t her first boyfriend of course, but it’s still out of character for her.

It’s okay though, there’s something that feels right and makes her happy about this. It’s new and maybe this isn’t love-wait it’s never going to touch love, it’s really just an intense make out that she really, really enjoyed. And maybe it’s not going to happen again (she really wants it to happen again, and she bets it will); but it all doesn’t matter because she had fun and they have a project to work on.

By the time Finnick gets here, the dishes are washed and she’s got last week’s work up and the presentation they are working on up on the TV so they can make edits on a bigger screen, the electricity has fallen away and she’s much more focused on what she has to do.

‘Hey,’ he says grinning a lopsided smile.

‘Hi,’ she says shyly. Finnick takes several large bounds from the front door to the couch where she’s standing and he’s standing very close. She has to look up at him, and she can smell his aftershave. There’s a mischievous light in his forest green eyes that’s smirking at her.

‘Hi,’ he says again leaning down close enough that their lips brush but he’s not kissing her and it’s really driving her insane, and also making it a bit hard to breathe.

‘Hi,’ she repeats. Finnick chuckles and he kisses her firmly. She exhales when he inhales, and it’s like last night again. He’s all she can feel, and she presses against as he bends her backwards, his hands running up her back. They both startle when she’s falling backwards, over the back of the couch, but she just giggles and pulls the sleeves of his shirt to pull him closer.

When they break for air, his hair is sticking up in all directions and they’re horizontal on the couch, with his long legs hanging off the edge.

‘We really need to do work,’ she reminds him. ‘It’s worth thirty percent.’

Finnick groans, ‘Well that’s a boner kill.’

She laughs and pushes his chest gently, ‘Jeez you’re such a perv.’

‘You like it,’ Finnick says and she rolls her eyes.

‘Not enough to fail the presentation,’ she says and Finnick is the one rolling her eyes.

* * *

 

Annie shows up on Wednesday with two Starbucks, one her usual dark roast, black and him a chai tea latte which after a Saturday afternoon exploring Santa Monica and finding an independent coffee shop he ordered in front of her.

‘Hi,’ she says offering him the cup while he moves to kiss her hello.

‘Hey,’ he would bet the spark in her eyes has something to do with trouble. They haven’t slept together yet, and it’s something he knows after a few weeks of whatever this is, eventually there are some things that need to be discussed.

‘For you,’ she says trying to hand him the coffee cup, ‘one tea tea latte from the most redundantly named drink ever.’

‘It’s Starbucks.’

‘I asked for it vegan,’ she rolls her eyes.

‘It’s _Starbucks_ Cresta,’ he emphasises. ‘It’s a big box corporation that’s not really fair trade and I can’t believe you bought me-I mean you can indulge in that all you want but I cannot-‘

‘Take it or leave it Odair,’ she interrupts him. ‘I didn’t have time this morning to drive all around Westwood trying to find an independent coffee shop that has a drive-thru.’

He sighs and accepts it. If he didn’t he’ll feel horrible, but doing so he is positive he is being judged by a room full of bleary eyed twenty-one year olds who are inhaling their coffee like it’s going out of business.

‘You’re supposed to say thank you,’ she reminds him setting up her MacBook.

‘Thank you for supporting a big corporation that is driving out local businesses in my name.’

Annie rolls her eyes, ‘You know I really don’t get this Starbucks thing. The fair trade, organic thing yeah okay I understand. But the local coffee shop scene? Those people can be dicks. Absolute dicks if you don’t have full…”hipster” cred.’

He tries to protest but she shakes it off, ‘You’re king of the Hipsters Finnick, you don’t see it. But for me? If I go into one of those, they give me shitty service and shitty coffee. At least at Starbucks they don’t discriminate.’

Her words resonate in him, but he doesn’t get a chance to prove her wrong because Haymitch stumbles into the class room reaching for his coffee, ready to start the lecture.

* * *

 

‘I can prove you wrong,’ Finnick says urgently as he packs up his things. He’s still got to work, but he’s not in as big as rush to get to wherever he works, she doesn’t actually know.

‘About what?’

‘About the independent coffee shop thing,’ he doesn’t wait for her response, instead he pushes onwards. ‘This Saturday meet me at my place at one okay?’

‘Okay?’ she says but he can’t elaborate, he just kisses her good bye and leaves, running to catch the bus.

It’s the first time he suggested they go to his place. They’re always out or at hers’, it doesn’t bother her-she has a nice house and she lives in a nice neighbourhood but still there’s something about this that feels rather momentous.

The amount of actual information she knows about Finnick Odair she could fit in a paragraph. She doesn’t know where he works; she doesn’t know his birthday or what his family is like or where he got his bachelors. She knows trivial things about, what his favourite colour is what music he listens to, his favourite book.

It’s weird, backwards maybe. Most people are supposed to know the person they regularly make out with more pressing information-like religion or politics. But she knows so little about him, it’s sad.

There’s a smile on her face, the type every girl has when they’re in love; the only thing is she doesn’t know it yet.

* * *

 

He’s waiting outside of his building for Annie to pull up and park on the street, and when she smiles waving at him, Ray Bands covering her eyes, and a pale blue sun dress on he can’t help but return the smile.

‘So,’ Annie smirks after kissing him hello, and their hands entwined. ‘How are you going to prove me wrong?’

‘We’re going to go to my favourite coffee shop,’ he tells her. ‘And we’re going to order the same drink by the same barista and then we can judge if you’re right or not.’

‘That’s not going to work; I’m automatically going to get better service with you if you’re a regular.’

‘We’re going in separately,’ he explains, smiling a bit as Annie begins swinging their hands as he leads her down Rampant Boulevard. ‘And once we’ve gotten our drink we’ll leave and walk around Filipinotown.’

‘I’m going in first,’ she tells him. ‘That way you can’t cheat and tell them to be nice to me.’

‘I wouldn’t do that!’ he protests, although he did have half a mind to have done it.

‘You so would,’ she counters. ‘I know you Finnick Odair, you would cheat.’

He sighs, but he can’t retort because they’re about to reach the store front of Capitol; he’s been going here for years, he knows the barista schedule like the back of his hands, and Cinna, the kind barista with the Ace colours on a heart shaped pin on his apron is the ideal barista for both of them.

‘Quick what are we getting? And don’t say a dark roast, because that’s completely unbelievable that I’m going to drink it.’

‘You do take everything with way too much sugar.’

‘What’s a girly, fruity drink that’s really popular and no one likes?’ he wonders and Annie stares at him.

‘How the hell would I know? You’re the one who drinks lattes!’

‘You go to Starbucks; there must be something everyone orders.’

Annie’s exasperated and she rolling her eyes at him,’ Fine pumpkin spice latte.’

He can’t help but snicker. ‘That is so basic of you Annie.’

‘I don’t drink it! You asked for a popular drink that sucks and there you go.’

‘Fine, order that.’

‘Will they even have that? Or is it too mainstream a drink?’

‘It’s an independent coffee shop not a gas station coffee,’ he says sarcastically. ‘Of course they’ll have it.’

‘I don’t trust these places you bring me to ever since I had to eat my burger with a spoon,’ Annie huffs as she pulls open the door to Capitol and he can hear the little bells ring.

He’s waiting, leaning against the brick walls going through messages from some of the girls he’s been cancelling on. Frowning, he tries to remember the last time he saw Octavia or Effie. It’s been over a month, and maybe Jo is right, maybe he has become less of a lover and more of a…singular lover.

Annie comes out ten minutes later holding a medium coffee cup, ‘Your turn,’ she says. ‘Also the music sounds like whales.’

Sighing he enters the coffee shop. It’s a small one, with the daily specials written in chalk hanging over top of the counter.  There are a few tables made of refurnished barn wood, and signatures and quotes overlapping and scrawled across the walls in sharpie, in paint and something that looks distinctly like lipstick.

He tries to picture this through Annie’s eyes, tries to see Effie with her bright pink hair and lobster claw shoes she made herself sitting in the table of the corner, flipping through the magazine she and Cinna self-publish as intimating and odd.

He can’t.

‘What can I get you today Finn?’ Cinna asks from across the counter. It’s a large wooden counter, with a glass pane in the front which lets the customer see a large collection of fair trade coffee beans. It’s a nice aesthetic that he appreciates but right now the importance isn’t over the aesthetic but the coffee and service.

‘A medium pumpkin spice latte,’ he requests and Cinna gives him a questioning look.

‘Not your usual.’

He shrugs and pulls out a five dollar bill. ‘My…my friend,’ he stutters around what to call Annie because she’s not just a friend. She’s not like Octavia or Lavinia who took a vow of silence, or even Venia. She’s not even like Jo. She’s someone different and he rather not figure that all out. ‘She wants me to try one. At least once.’

The smirk on Cinna’s face makes it clear that he’s not fooling anyone, and that his little hick up over  what to call Annie, but thankfully the older man doesn’t comment on it, instead he dutifully goes over the machine designated the vegan one and starts measuring out the ingredients. ‘You might even like it Finn, it is sweet enough that you don’t have to add extra sugar.’

He rolls his eyes, and makes small talk with Cinna before he leaves the shop, citing a meeting he has to go to with a wave of his fingers.

‘So?’ Annie asks, invading his personal space the minute he manages to get out of the coffee ship ‘Was it bad?’

He shrugs, it wasn’t bad service but it’s not good either. It’s standard. Annie sighs at his non response.

‘Okay so here try this,’ she passes him her mug which has _Annie_ scribbled on the side in Cinna’s elegant handwriting, with her name misspelled.  ‘It’s vegan.’

He chuckles, and then sips on the latte she order. It tastes fine, sweet but not bad in the slightest.

‘How is pumpkin spice supposed to taste?’ he asks, realizing there’s a flaw in their plan. They don’t have a control.

Annie shrugs, ‘Bad. Too sweet?’

‘Well that’s helpful,’ he says and she rolls his eyes. ‘Try this one now.’

She takes the recyclable cup from his hand and her nose wrinkles as she drinks it, ‘This one tastes better,’ she announces handing back.

He scoffs, ‘You’re insane. We should have done this blind,’ he says taking a swig. He has to hide his surprise, there’s a distinct taste of cinnamon and nutmeg in his drink which was missing from hers. Maybe there is merit to her theory.

‘See?’ Annie beams expectantly. ‘Yours was better.’

‘No it’s not, shut up,’ he says starting a wander down the road towards Filipinotown.

Annie laughs, ‘You’re cute when you’re wrong,’ she says keeping up beside him drinking her pumpkin spice latte and cringing each time she took a sip.

* * *

 

They spend the afternoon strolling through historical Filipinotown, which she’s never been before. She manages to make Finnick indulge her with a few selfies, but he’s notoriously hard to get photos of. She doesn’t understand why-he’s gorgeous and if she looked maybe half as good as him, she’d quit school and model. Maybe.

But she doesn’t push it, she labels it one of the other things Finnick Odair does that is odd and peculiar and he won’t explain and she won’t waste her breathe asking about.

She does, over bubble tea (lychee for her and strawberry for him) in a small café that is retro in an odd way and plays loud K-pop, ask him what his job is particularly.

‘Oh,’ Finnick says surprised, ‘Oh I didn’t tell you?’

‘No you just always work.’

‘I work with inner city youth,’ he says conversationally. ‘We try to get them on track, and keep them there. They’re bright kids, so we just need to make sure they don’t get too sidetracked.’

Of all the things she was expecting-modelling for Peta was the top contender; this is much more noble than imagined.

‘Oh, that’s really amazing of you.’

He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, like it’s nothing special, but it really is. ‘Not really.’

‘No it’s so good. Why did you go into that area?’

The minute she says that, she can see him shrink from the inside. This is one of those things that is the Do Not Talk About box that Finnick has and she walked into it. She’s about to apologise for asking, but he opens his mouth, determination painted on his face.

‘It’s…it’s stupid but I…I when I was a kid, all I wanted to be was a superhero, and when I was…fourteen I sort of realized that super heroes don’t exist and maybe the best thing I can do is make sure some other kids don’t…don’t get hurt by people.’

He’s halting and hesitating, the words coming out slowly and somewhat surely as if he’s editing what he’s saying. It’s not the full truth, not really. But it’s enough for her.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘You’re a superhero Finnick. You really are.’

Yeah, hipster douchebag is not how she’d ever describe Finnick Odair ever again.

* * *

 

He logs onto Panem less and less, mainly because he spends a lot of time with Annie. He’s not quite sure how or why that happened, but slowly and with the force of a freight train or a tidal wave they’ve fallen into a routine.

Most nights, Annie is on campus about the same time he’s done work, so it’s not that hard at all to meet up on campus and to walk around discussing their favourite genres of films, or books. Though Annie admits she doesn’t have a lot of time for pleasure reading due to being in a lab heavy first year of her masters.

He’s at the tail end, finishing up his thesis and preparing for his defense and he’ll all be set to go as long as he gets that stupid English coursework done.

Because of the time difference it’s harder and harder to end up online at the same time as Gale or Johanna, so he’s pleasantly surprised on a Tuesday night when they’re both online.

> **D12:** the prodigal son returns
> 
> **D12:** been awhile
> 
> **D4:** hey
> 
> **D7:** where are u all the time
> 
> **D7:** with annie?
> 
> **D12:** whose annie
> 
> **D7:** his gf
> 
> **D4:** not my gf
> 
> **D12:** confused
> 
> **D7:** annie is the basic bitch
> 
> **D12** : what basic bitch
> 
> **D12:** twitter basic bitch?
> 
> **D12:** and your partner for something?
> 
> **D4:** ya
> 
> **D12:** what the fuck man
> 
> **D4:** it just sort of happened
> 
> **D12:** so she is your gf?
> 
> **D4:** no she isnt
> 
> **D7:** ya she is
> 
> **D4:** how is she my gf?
> 
> **D7:** b/c ur not cybering with me b/c of her
> 
> **D4:** not b/c of her
> 
> **D12:** i do not want to know
> 
> **D12:** wait does she know about the twitter?
> 
> **D4:** no why
> 
> **D7:** who cares its gold

Finnick leans back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. He hasn’t thought about the twitter account in a while, and hasn’t updated the queue with any sarcastic observations, or hilarious and stupid quotes from Annie or any other girl who follows the basic life style.

He checks the queue for a few minutes, there’s still a good strong amount that he doesn’t need to worry about it running low for the next few months.

* * *

 

He’s on the black couch in Annie’s apartment and he must say this is the most amazing couch in the world and it should be framed and in a museum permanently.

This may have something to do with the fact that Annie is on top of him and there are only his jeans and her skirt pooled over them stopping them.

Her shirt is somewhere and he doesn’t actually know how he’s got his off, but she’s everywhere and that’s exactly what he wants and he’s slipping the straps of her green bra off her arms when he has to stop.

She has to know.

‘Wait,’ he says against her lips, and he watches as her eyes open and she stops from marking his neck with what he is positive will be a splendid hickey. ‘Wait slow down.’

‘What?’ she asks.

‘Okay I…’he stops; it’s never been this hard to tell someone. But then again they generally know the deal going in to it. Annie doesn’t know anything. ‘So I really want to do this. Like I really, really want to do this. But like I can’t.’

Annie sits back on her haunches, ‘Why?’

‘I…fuck,’ he sighs and covers his eyes, before he can lose his nerve. She has to know because otherwise he can’t…this can’t continue whatever this is. ‘So like when I was fourteen my mom remarried. And my stepdad was a decent guy. He taught swimming lessons at the Y and he just never seemed like a creep. But after the wedding he started-he started um. He started molesting me until I was sixteen when I told someone and then I was in…anyway. Yeah, so like I really want to have sex with you but I just can’t tonight.’

‘Wow,’ when he uncovers his eyes he can see Annie wide eyed and surprised at what he said. She’s pulled on his t-shirt from wherever it was thrown and it’s too big for her. ‘Wow, okay.’

He waits for a more coherent response.

‘Is that why you work with those kids?’ she asks, and he’s surprised at that one. He’s heard a lot of “I’m sorry” and asking why can’t they have sex but she’s the only one who went to ask about his job, ‘Because you can empathise with them and you can see the warning signs?’

‘Yeah,’ Finnick says a bit numbly, trying to figure out how her brain works.

She turns to him and smiles so kindly and delicately he feels like his heart is going to break, ‘You are a superhero Finnick, you really are.’

‘No I’m not,’ he says dryly. ‘I’m just…’

‘You’re trying to save kids from what horrible, horrible things happened to you,’ she insists. ‘That’s a superhero.’

He doesn’t feel like one but he doesn’t get a chance to tell her that because she hugs him softly and then shifts off his lap.

‘Whenever you’re ready,’ she tells him. ‘It’s all good. Take your time.’

He kisses the crown of her head and drags her closes so he can cuddle.

* * *

 

When they do have sex, it’s a week later and she does not enough adjectives in her vocabulary to describe the sex.

It’s good, it’s really good.

They take it slow, feeling each other’s bodies out, kissing every expanse of skin.

He buries his head between her thighs for what feels like eternity and she has her hand covering her mouth, trying not to make noise and she swears to god she can feel him smirk.

It’s not like coming home when they slide together, crashing together the way two bodies do.

It’s not as familiar, but there’s a hum in the air, something electric that makes this night on her sheets, with Finnick on top of her, slick from sweat and her nails dragging down his back, different than any other man in her bed.

There’s something special happening, and she’d like to think they both know it.

* * *

 

She has to go to Haymitch’s office hours, to make sure her essay is on track, and the minute he sees her at the threshold he’s grinning wickedly, like he knows a large secret about her.

She rolls her eyes and gives him the laptop with the essay open for him to skim,

He does so gleefully and willingly, and makes comments about watching her punctuation and her arguments are a bit weak in the fourth part, so she needs to check that out.

‘So,’ Haymitch says handing back the computer,’ You and Finnick eh? I thought you said there was no sexual tension.’

‘Shut up,’ she blushes furiously.

Her not quite an uncle smirks, ‘See I told you didn’t hate him you just wanted in his pants.’

‘Oh my god.’

‘Am I wrong?’

‘Totally,’ she tells Haymitch. ‘You were completely and totally wrong. He wasn’t-I didn’t…it just happened okay?’

Her not uncle (he’s never going to be an uncle fully, not like Brutus or Beetee because he was never there in the hospital when Mags wanted him. He was drying out in some rehab in New York City-she knows that but still she was twenty-one, and her dad was long gone and her mom never wanted a kid, and now it’s just her and her family by bonds not blood, and she will accept but she cannot forgive him fully for what he did) smiles but then his face gets serious.

‘Are you okay with this?’ he asks leaning forward in his old wooden chair. ‘Odair’s not a…he’s got a reputation of not being the best.’

She nods. She knows she’s not the only one; they’re safe and she’s on the pill as well using condoms. And it’s a moot point but he doesn’t seem to be talking to any other girl. He still doesn’t text a lot but he’s spending what seems like every night at her place after work so she’s almost likes to believe they’re monogamous.

She knows how wishful that sounds, but hey she’s twenty-three, it can happen right?

‘Yeah. Yeah, no I am,’ she tells him.

‘Okay,’ Haymitch says relaxes. ‘Then I guess Brutus can’t gut him then.’

‘No,’ she giggles, trying to picture her big strong uncle who teaches elementary school and whose closest contact to violence is with the pro-wrestling he always watches beat up the tall vegan Finnick. ‘No, I don’t think Uncle Brutus can gut Finnick.’

‘Pity,’ her professor says. ‘I’d have paid good money for that.’

* * *

 

They alternate places, his apartment and hers’. Finnick has a studio apartment, one with a double bed in the corner, hardwood floors and brick exposed walls in a corner.

It’s exactly what she would expect from someone who is a hipster. There’s a record player with some vinyl albums, obscure ones that he admits that he picked up from the second hand store at the corner. There are books everywhere on a variety of topics, and all of them look big and heavy and she’s almost one hundred percent sure he spends time going to various second hand book stores and just picking interesting titles, walking blindly through the sections with how varied it all is.

There’s a desk, which is more of a door on top of two invert ‘v’s that hosts an expensive looking iMac which he explained sheepishly as the one he needs and the only thing he’s spent a lot of money on. She didn’t let him forget that when he blusters on about her large collection of Apple products.

There’s a bicycle in the corner next to a shoe shelf, and while Finnick’s apartment is very him there is a distinct lack of seating in the entire apartment-there’s only the desk chair.

She understands why they spend so much time at her place, she has more furniture. Not that she minds spending a lot of time in bed, in fact she kind of prefers it.

Finnick’s in the shower when she crawls out from under the covers to his computer, clicking on the mouse to wake it up. She wants to check her Facebook and maybe the time for the movie they want to see and her purse, with her phone are far away in the kitchenette.

When the computer monitor brightens, there’s already a browser open so she moves to make a new tab when she notices a tab marked “Twitter” open.

She knows she shouldn’t, it’s invading his privacy but he told her he didn’t have any social media and well he’s seen her naked and also peed while she was taking a shower once, so they don’t really have any privacy left between them.

She clicks the tab.

It’s a twitter account that he runs called _The_ _Basic Girl Next Door_ , and it’s got several million followers.  The little paragraph near the display picture of what looks like a heavily filtered picture of the back of her walking towards her car last fall reads: _The basic girl I see every week, and the questions I want to ask her._

What follows are series of tweets, the latest one sent only two hours ago. All of them are cruel and mocking and overly sarcastic and she can hear Finnick’s voice as she reads them.

> _How many filters are too many filters for a picture of your fucking food?_
> 
> _Do you actually do yoga or do you just carry the mat around?_
> 
> _Shows up late, with Starbucks and a MacBook._
> 
> _If Apple needs a new marketing campaign, may I suggest you?_

‘Annie, wanna join me?’ Finnick’s voice calls and she doesn’t turn away as she scrolls down and down an almost endless amount of tweets, all liked and favourite and retweeted and commented to. All these strangers on the internet who she has never ever met making fun of her, laughing at her and hating her. ‘Annie?’

‘What is this?’ she asks her voice shaking as she can hear Finnick pad across the room. ‘What is this Finnick?’

‘What are you-‘his voice dies and she can feel him right behind her, reading over her shoulder. ‘Annie, Annie I can explain.’

‘You wrote about me?’ her voice gets higher in pitch and she’s just staring at the screen, trying to figure out what is happening, why this is happening.

‘No, no not you,’ he says hurriedly, his arms on her shoulders trying to move her to face him, ‘Not you. No just…just girls…like you.’

‘Like me?’ Everything shatters in that moment, and she has to look at him. She hopes he can see the disgust and hurt on her face, unflinchingly. ‘What makes me different from girls that are like me?’

‘You’re…you’re cool, you don’t-‘

She cuts him off, ‘You made me a joke. You made me a joke on the internet to people I’ve never met. You’ve made me a joke and you don’t even-‘

‘But it’s not you, it’s just basic girl-‘

‘What’s wrong with being basic?’ she pushes his arms off him. ‘What’s wrong with liking stuff that’s popular? And cute and interesting? I’m not doing anything to hurt anyone by liking this and you-and all of them,’ she waves her hand at the computer screen.  ‘You laugh at us. You made us a joke.’

‘No I didn’t, I swear to god Annie I didn’t-‘

‘Get away from me,’ she says and it’s gone. Whatever this was supposed to be, whatever this could be is gone.

Finnick keeps on trying to convince her to stay when she gets dressed as fast as she can, and he follows her out of the apartment and to her car, begging her to let him explain.

She gets in her car and drives.

She drives and drives until she’s out of L.A, and she keeps on driving.

* * *

 

Well, fuck.

He stands on the street watching her taillights become nothing but a memory and he has to drag himself to get back inside his apartment.

His first thought, irrational is that he has to call her. So he does. He leaves her a voice mail, after voice mail until he’s filled up the entire mailbox and he can do nothing else but text her. And he does.

And she still doesn’t answer.

His second thought, also irrational is that he needs to delete that twitter, and maybe then she’ll figure it out.

But he can’t do that, there are people who like that twitter, who depend on it for laughs. There are people who depend on him and he can’t leave them now.

So it’s a problem. A very big problem.

He logs onto Panem, and goes through the blog chat room trying to see if Jo or Gale or someone is online.

He’s in luck, Gale’s online.

> **D4:** i need help
> 
> **D12:** ok
> 
> **D12** : whats up?
> 
> **D4:** so the girl i was talking about before?
> 
> **D4:** she found the twitter
> 
> **D4:** and she wont talk to me or anything
> 
> **D12:** no shit
> 
> **D12:** you were fucking the girl youre making fun of online
> 
> **D12:** what the hell did you think was going to happen?
> 
> **D4:** i don’t know
> 
> **D4** :not this
> 
> **D4:** how do i fix this?
> 
> **D12:** i don’t know if you can
> 
> **D4:** i have to.
> 
> **D4:** i can’t lose her
> 
> **D12:** are you sure she’s just one of your harem?
> 
> **D12:** you sound like a desperate boyfriend caught cheating
> 
> **D4:** annie’s not my girlfriend
> 
> **D12:** then why are you so upset

He stares at the font on the monitor, but he can’t find an answer to Gale and he doesn’t like this because yes Annie is different but how different is she?

How different is this?

He logs off.

* * *

 

Aunt Lyme was nineteen when she met Mags in a small diner, two months pregnant and running away from an abusive ex-boyfriend.

Mags easily brought her into her home, as her personal assistant and after Lyme had given to her son Thresh, Mags soon trained her to be a general manager at Cresta Ltd.

Annie’s mother had left as soon as the ink dried on the divorce papers when she was three, and so after Mags, Lyme was the closest she had to a mother. Thresh, and Lyme’s young daughter Rue were the closest she had to siblings, and so when she drove all the way to Crescent City, crying and only stopping for gas, she ended up at the front door of Lyme’s brownstone.

Lyme, a tall, striking woman with an unforgettable face with a proud nose and strong jawline saw the mess of a girl with her dress on backwards and dark purple eye bags framing red rimmed eyes and pulled her into a hug, and let her cry herself out in her arms.

It is later under the cover of a messily knitted blanket-a summer project between mother and daughter- and in the safety of family does she tell everything to a worried Lyme and a haggard Brutus. Beetee couldn’t make the drive from Silicon Valley, but it’s okay, it’s a trivial thing. It’s just a boy.

He’s just a boy.

She kept on repeating that, like a mantra trying to keep herself sane and calm as she drove up the thirteen hour route on the I-5 N. Maybe if she just repeats it, she’ll believe it.

‘It’s so stupid,’ she hiccups. ‘It’s so goddamn stupid. Why am I so upset? It wasn’t like we were dating or anything-‘

‘I’ll kill him,’ Brutus promises, quiet and deep. ‘I’ll gut him and bleed him dry.’

She can’t even laugh weakly at his outrageous promises. ‘Don’t, don’t please Brutus. Don’t. It’s all my fault.’

‘How can that be?’ Lyme says from her side, her handing running in soothing patterns on her back.

‘Because I knew he was douchebag before,’ she says chocking up; all of her previously thought ideas of how Finnick was just a weird guy who kept secrets are gone. She should have pushed harder; she should have done something to make him tell her what was going on in his head. That way she would haven’t been so blind sighted. ‘And now I just…he’s a giant douchebag and I was right and god why am I so stupid?’

‘You’re not stupid,’ Lyme says soothingly.

She doesn’t tell her aunt she’s wrong, because she is stupid.

She’s incredibly stupid because she still likes him.

* * *

 

It’s the worst week he’s ever had, including the periods of weeks in between ages fourteen and sixteen, when he was just a victim unable to do anything; but now he’s not the victim someone else is because of him, and it gets even worst when he shows up to the seminar on Wednesday and Annie is not there, but sitting in her seat next to his is Haymitch, looking more awake than he was expecting.

‘Hi,’ he says shortly.

‘Just letting you know, that because of a family emergency Annie Cresta had to drop this course,’ his professor says lazily. ‘You’ll have to present by yourself. That’s okay right?’

‘Yeah,’ he says numbly. She’s dropped the course, she really must hate him. ‘Yeah that’s-have you heard from her?’

‘Yeah,’ it’s a short one word answer, concise and gruff and he knows he shouldn’t push it but he has to. He has to find out where on earth she went, because she’s not at her apartment, and he’s torn apart Los Angeles, looking for her with all of his Panem contacts and she’s not anywhere he can find.

‘How is she?’

‘Physically, she’s fine,’ his professor says. ‘But mentally-well how you would feel if a guy you liked and was sleeping with was making you a huge joke on the internet?’

Oh. Oh his blood runs cold and something aches because he did not mean to do that at all to her. It wasn’t her that was the joke, it was the whole…it was…

It was things she liked that were a joke to him. And he likes her, he does, and he’s making the things he likes about her a joke, which is making her a joke.

‘I stopped,’ he says more like a whisper to himself than trying to tell his professor. ‘I stopped when we started- like months ago.’

‘There are tweets from three days ago,’ Haymitch says coolly. And he’s right. But he scrubbed the entire queue, so no more tweets have come from that account.

‘There’s this app,’ he says trying to explain, ‘You can write all these tweets and have a queue running so they can get published when you’re out doing thing. So I haven’t…I haven’t really written one in months.’

‘I don’t give a rat’s ass,’ Haymitch’s says slowly. ‘Of when you wrote or did not write those tweets. You wrote them, they’re out there, and my niece who told me that you made her happy is crying and running away from you.’

‘I didn’t mean to hurt her,’ he says helplessly and it feels a bit like being fifteen, and knowing everything was wrong but there’s no way to fight him off or push him off because then Mom will know and every bit happiness Mom had would go away and how would they be able to afford the mortgage?

‘But you did.’

* * *

 

After the disastrous chat with Gale he hasn’t been on Panem lately, so after work he tries to log on, but the entire website is scrubbed, and he’s got frantic emails from everyone trying to figure out who the hell Wiress is and why the entire website is gone.

He doesn’t have any answers, until he checks twitter perhaps there’s a new virus or something and his account is scrubbed to.

His lungs feel lined with lead as hesitates to log onto his private email-with his luck it will be scrubbed.

Instead there is a message waiting for him by someone named Wiress.

> _To the man who humiliated my niece,_
> 
> _I hope you have learnt you lesson._
> 
> _-Beetee_

‘Fuck,’ he says after a quick search. How many uncles does she have?

* * *

>  
> 
> **JM@s0n:** so let me get this straight
> 
> **JM@s0n:** the reason y panem is gone is b/c of the basic twitter
> 
> **Odairyouare:** ya pretty much
> 
> **JM@s0n:** b/c the girl from the twitter aka ur partner 4 class aka ur gf in rl
> 
> **JM@s0n:** found out about it  & she happens 2 b
> 
> **JM@s0n:** the chief engineer for googles niece?
> 
> **Odairyouare:** ya.
> 
> **Odairyouare:** i didnt know about that
> 
> **JM@s0n:** no shit sherlock
> 
> **JM@s0n:** so get panem back
> 
> **Odairyouare:** how
> 
> **JM@s0n:** idk eat her cunt 5ever
> 
> **JM@s0n:** does it matter
> 
> **JM@s0n:** im not losing my blog b/.c of ur dick
> 
> **Odairyouare:** its not b/c of my dick
> 
> **Odairyouare:** its b/c of the twitter
> 
> **Odairyouare:** i humiliated her
> 
> **JM@s0n:** u didnt
> 
> **JM@s0n:** if grls like that r going 2 b that obnoxious
> 
> **JM@s0n:** its fair game
> 
> **Odairyouare:** shes not obnoxious
> 
> **JM@s0n:** shes basic
> 
> **JM@s0n:** she wears lulus  & ray bands & fishtails
> 
> **JM@s0n:** shes asking for it
> 
> **Odairyouare:** holy fuck
> 
> **Odairyouare:** youre a complete bitch.
> 
> **JM@s0n:** u just realized it now
> 
> **Odairyouare:** no
> 
> **Odairyouare:** but i just made a girl I actually like
> 
> **Odairyouare:** a joke on the internet to millions of people
> 
> **Odairyouare:** and you think its fine b/c she doesnt like
> 
> **Odairyouare:** whatever you like?
> 
> **JM@s0n:** well its not like shes going to do things with her life
> 
> **JM@s0n:**  shes not exactly contributing to feminism
> 
> **JM@s0n:** with her lipstick  & nail polish & dresses & shit
> 
> **Odairyouare:** oh my god
> 
> **Odairyouare:** youre fucking insane
> 
> **Odairyouare:** shes fucking in physics doing her masters
> 
> **Odairyouare:** and how is wearing a dress not good feminism
> 
> **Odairyouare:** you know what
> 
> **Odairyouare:** forget it
> 
> **Odairyouare:** im not having this conversation with you

* * *

It’s not that she takes the semester off-she’s not in love with Finnick and there is no way that she’s letting him be the reason why her lab results and other school work is postponed. Instead she emails Haymitch begging for a change of an arrangement, giving a cliff notes version of what happened.

She only spends a week at Crescent City under the watchful eye of Lyme and Brutus before she make the twelve hour drive back to L.A.

The first thing she does is tell the doorman that Finnick Odair is no longer welcome and he’s not allowed into the building and if he tries, she asks Cato to tell him she has moved.

The second thing she does is change parking spots on campus so that she parks still near the labs but in a different area all together so if he’s looking for her car, he’ll never find it.

The third thing she does is change her cellphone number; she’s been deleting without listening to all of the voice mails he’s left, and has blocked his number so she doesn’t get any texts.

She doesn’t care if he’s sorry and if he’s grown hoarse apologising to her.  You don’t make a twitter account making fun of a person, you just don’t.

The fourth thing she does is delete every photo of him, and burn any item of clothing he left behind at her place. She would have donated it, but with her luck it would be at the second hand shop he frequents and he’d figure it out.

* * *

 

Prim, a young girl, maybe fifteen who moved from South Dakota last year with her sister is the one to ask him at work why he’s not as happy.

He’s always advised honesty, lying to them makes them to lie to him and then you can’t help people properly. But this time he doesn’t really want to be honest, because honestly what he did was wrong and horrible and probably somewhat illegal and he understands completely why Annie hasn’t contacted him at all.

He just wishes she would.

‘I guess I just sort of screwed up,’ he tells her feet dangling in on the deep end of the swimming pool at the community center. He teaches swim classes there weekly, as well as his other work around there. He wouldn’t normally, but he just happened to be one of the only lifeguard certified they could find, and he was already on staff.

‘Everyone screws up,’ Prim tells him. ‘It can’t be that bad.’

He chuckles darkly, ‘No I really screwed up. Like… I’m the Joker in this situation.’

‘Who else is involved?’ she asks.

He hesitates because there are a large number of people involved just for the sake of following that twitter but that doesn’t mean that they’re completely involved.  ‘A girl,’ he allows.

‘Your girlfriend?’ Prim asks, he nods. It’s a lot easier referring to Annie as his girlfriend than explaining everything, and as a rule he tries not to push his beliefs on the kids who come to the center to escape. He doesn’t talk to them about veganism or free love or any of that unless they come up to him first.

‘Did you cheat on her or something?’

‘No,’ he says. It’s true by the time he and Annie were physical he wasn’t seeing any of the girls he usually makes time for, and wasn’t even cybering with Jo for a while. ‘I didn’t stand up for her and I didn’t realize I hurt her feelings until it was too late.’

Prim is quiet for a long time, and he’s content with making circles in the over chlorinated water with his toes. He didn’t think a fifteen year old girl could solve his problems, but it did feel better to share them (sort of) without anyone judging him or ridiculing Annie like Jo did.

‘You know,’ Prim says conversationally, ‘When Katniss doesn’t pick Peeta’s social cues and ends up hurting him she usually just gives him a blow job. And when that fails she tries to make dinner.’

He can’t help but snort; he wasn’t expecting that coming from Prim. He’s heard a lot of stories about Prim’s older sister and her boyfriend (Prim has many theories about her sister suffering from some form of autism; he wouldn’t know he’s never met her personally though he’s pretty sure that Peeta is actually in his romantic poets class.) but he doesn’t think that will help.

‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ he promises. ‘If she ever talks to me again.’

‘Oh, it’s one of those.’

‘Yep,’ he says mimicking her tone, ‘One of those.’

‘Maybe you should go find her then. Be over dramatic like _The Notebook_.’

‘The what?’

‘ _The Notebook_. The famous movie about a misunderstanding keeping two people who are meant to be together together?’’

‘Never seen it,’ he says. ‘I’m not a…mainstream move guy.’

‘Well yeah, you’re a hipster.’

‘I’m not a hipster,’ he protests. Prim rolls her eyes at him.

‘You listen to music from bands that no one knows existed. You’ve got the tattoos and the glasses and the hates and the v-necks and scarfs. You talk about things no one’s ever heard or cares about. You see movies with subtitles! You’re totally a hipster Finn.’

He hates the word hipster, he finds it pretentious. The people who identify as hipster are always rude and cold and look down at people.

Kind of like what he did to Annie and everyone else with that twitter.

‘It’s not bad to be hipster,’ Prim quickly says, watching his expression.

‘Is it better to be basic or a hipster?’

Prim shrugs, ‘No clue. I mean a hipster likes what no one else likes and someone who’s basic likes what everyone likes. It’s two extremes but they’re not bad.’

They’re not bad.

* * *

 

She dates occasionally. No one serious and the minute she thinks they’re lying to her or hiding something, she’s good as gone. Finnick’s made her paranoid and she doesn’t go near men who are vegans or have tattoos.

It’s a generalization yes, but she’d much rather just not go near those people because they spell heartache and trouble.

All she wanted was to make Finnick Odair not hate her, and she thought-she really did for those few months of blissful happiness- that he didn’t hate her. Joke’s on her, he hated her enough to have a twitter going with her as the walking punch line.

* * *

 

Annie doesn’t come back. He wishes she did, but she didn’t come back and UCLA is a big campus and he manages to finish his Masters without seeing her the rest of the year.

Eventually he stops looking.

If she isn’t willing to forgive him, that’s okay. He can’t do anything to make her forgive him.

And sometimes he doesn’t think he deserves forgiveness.

He doesn’t talk to Jo anymore; he’s cut ties with most of the people from Panem. They all drifted apart when her uncle under the alias Wiress dismantled the website. He does occasionally talk to Gale, who is engaged to a kindergarten teacher back in South Dakota and he’s been invited to the wedding.

He’s now works with the city of Los Angeles in their at risk youth unit. He’s on the streets, talking to kids trying to get them to safer homes, and sorting out their lives.

They respond to him better than the other social workers, with his tattoos and his face.

He’s got a new tattoo, script writing across both his wrists, so when he’s reaching out a hand he always has a reminder thanks to Newton’s Third Law.

* * *

 

She ends up at Caltech for her doctorate, and she’s thoroughly enjoying herself.

Somewhere in the past three years she stopped hating Finnick Odair and his black box of secrets, and she let go of the hurt.

It’s not that she’s forgiven him, but she’s grown up enough and has enough distance between L.A, and Finnick and all of that to see how he legitimately didn’t understand why she was so hurt. It’s not an excuse, but she supposes if you think of people as individuals once you know them rather than a collective it can be hard to see why they would be upset.

It’s like how people say they don’t see race and use that as an excuse to make racist jokes. It’s the same idea.

She doesn’t like it, but she understands how he would see it that.

Haymitch has gotten tenure, which is why she and all the family of blood have all travelled down to UCLA to celebrate.

It’s nostalgia that drives her, so before she drives back to Caltech she walks around in a somewhat aimless direction. She’s only slightly surprised when she ends up at the door way to the Capitol coffee shop.

There’s the man from three years ago behind the counter and he looks up with a slight smile, and when she waits for her small dark roast coffee she realizes the man in the corner in deep conversation with what looks like a runaway is Finnick.

She can’t help but stare. He hasn’t changed much, he’s still tall, tan and his clothing hasn’t really changed. His glasses are still thick black and rectangular, his eyes still forest green and his copper hair curls around his ears.

When the barista calls ‘Annie,’ loudly and clearly even though she’s the only other person besides Finnick and the runaway in the corner, his head jerks up and he stares at her.

She takes her coffee and runs.

It’s hard to run in heels, without spilling coffee and not knowing the area well enough to know where she turn to hide, and Finnick with his loafers easily catches up, one large hand on her forearm stilling her.

‘Annie,’ he says and she turns to look at him. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ she says.

 

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is [here](http://seevikifangirl.tumblr.com) and I will answer any questions.
> 
> Thanks for the reading, kudos and comments, they make my day.


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